


on the outside (lookin' in)

by parcequelle



Category: Holby City
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Long Lingering Looks, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: Bernie and Serena pine for a while and then finally get a clue. (Or: five four times someone else realised these idiots are in love, the two times they realised it for themselves, and the time they did something about it.)





	1. Evie

It’s stupid, she knows, but Evie is more excited than nervous when she finds out she has appendicitis. She feels sorry for Dad, who’s sweet but kind of dorky in the way he’s flailing and going on about how unfair it all is, after the year – years – she’s had, but Uncle Raf is there when she doubles over in pain and he tells her it’s going to be fine, that it’s a straightforward procedure, that they’ll get her over to AAU right away.

Dad picks her up like she’s a little kid and sets her in the back of the car, and they speed off, leaving Uncle Raf and the others on the driveway, Evie sticking her hand out the window to wave. When they’ve turned onto the main road, out of sight, she presses a hand to the throbbing pain in her side and tries to remember she’s meant to be scared.

“I want Serena,” she tells Dad, when he’s pushing her through the halls of Holby like he’s going for the title of Wheelie World Champion.

He gets her into the lift and then comes to kneel in front of her, hands on hers. “I don’t know if Serena’s still on shift, love, but I’ll see what we can do, yeah?”

She starts looking around for Serena as soon as they get on the ward, but Dad is calling out for help and then the pretty young doctor with the wicked cool hair is rushing over and smiling at her. “Hello, Evie, I’m Morven – do you remember me?” Evie nods. “We’ll just get you over into a bed to examine you, all right?”

“Where’s Serena?” Evie asks. She turns sharply around in the wheelchair and winces at the stretch of pain. “Ow.”

“Right, that’s enough now, Evie,” Dad says, all stern. “Don’t you worry about Serena – just listen to Morven, okay?”

“But I want—”

“Is Serena here?” Dad asks Morven.

Morven nods, and Evie sighs a little in relief. “She got out of theatre twenty minutes ago. I think she’s in the office.”

“Right, thanks.” Dad races off and Evie allows Morven to help her into a bed behind a curtain and out of her clothes. It’s kind of embarrassing, but Morven is nice about it, joking around about other stuff to help take Evie’s mind off it a bit.

Morven is examining her and nodding to herself when the office door opens and out comes Serena – her shirt is rumpled and she looks a little tired, but she gives Evie a broad smile when she spots her. 

“Well,” she exclaims, coming over to squeeze Evie’s hand, “if it isn’t my favourite future F1! What have you done to yourself this time?”

“I need an appendectomy,” Evie says, proud that she knows the correct term (her mate Lara always just says ‘had to get my appendix out’), and Serena glances over at Morven, who nods.

“Raf caught it early,” she says. “Shall I arrange for a theatre slot?”

“Yes,” Serena says, “thank you, Morven.” She looks at Evie and gives her an encouraging smile, pats her arm. “I’ll do this one myself.”

Evie grins.

*

When she wakes up, she is in a different bed on a different part of the ward, and it’s daytime. It’s also a lot noisier; there is something going on near the lift that she can’t quite hear, and she struggles to sit up to get a better look. Her muscles feel like jelly, though, her brain too slow, and the commotion is over before she ever learns what it is. She isn’t conscious long before she hears a voice say, “She’s awake!” and the tall blond doctor – Serena’s friend, Bernie, she thinks – moves over to smile at her, closely followed by Dad and Uncle Raf. 

“Good morning, Evie,” Bernie says. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Evie says, but she doesn’t have much of a chance to say more before Dad is hugging her as fiercely as she can without hurting her, babbling about how good it is to see her conscious again. “Dad!” she giggles. “I’m fine, it was just my appendix!”

Dad looks almost like he might cry, that look he sometimes gets when she says something that reminds him of Mum, and she smiles at him. “It’s okay,” she says.

“Good to see you, Evie,” Uncle Raf says, bending down to kiss her forehead before he steers Dad under protest in the direction of the kettle. Evie turns back to Bernie, who has been checking her stats and now asks her to lie back so she can examine her, ask her some questions about how she’s feeling that Evie listens and responds to with great interest.

“So,” Bernie says, when she’s done, “I hear you’re interested in becoming a surgeon, too?”

Evie nods. Bernie studies her for a moment and Evie cocks her head. “What?”

“Just seeing if I can imagine it, and you know what? I can.” Bernie nods. “In fact, I think you’ll be a good one.”

Evie wants to smile, but instead she asks, “Why?”

“Because you’re very cool under pressure. I noticed that just now. And Serena told me you were like that right before you had your operation, too.” She crosses her arms over her chest and says, “That’s a great start.”

Now Evie does smile. “I want to be like Serena,” she says. “You’re her friend, right?”

“Uh,” Bernie says, and looks at Evie’s stats again, though Evie’s pretty sure they haven’t changed. “Uh, yes. I mean, of course. Yes, I am.”

“It must be _amazing_ to work with her.”

Bernie smiles. “It is. Serena is one of the best doctors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.” She leans forward and whispers, “She maybe even _is_ the best, but you’d better not tell her I said that. She’ll get a big head.”

Evie giggles. “I promise I won’t. Dad says you should be careful about complimenting surgeons because they’re already so full of—hi Serena!”

Serena comes into view as she walks out of the theatre and across the ward, still dressed in her light green scrubs and holding her funny leopard-print cap. She still looks tired, but when she hears Evie call, she smiles and comes right over. She’s looking at Bernie as she does, though, and there’s a different smile on her face, not like the one she just gave Evie. This one looks more like a secret, like it’s saying a lot of different things without words. Like it’s a smile only Bernie is meant to see.

Evie looks at Bernie and sees she’s smiling the exact same way, her eyes looking Serena up and down. “Serena?” she asks, and Serena gives a small shake of her head. Bernie nods.

Serena reaches the bed and rests a hand on Evie’s shoulder, smiles her regular smile again. “How are you, darling?”

“Great,” Evie says. “Thanks for doing my operation.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“Were you there, too?” Evie asks Bernie.

Bernie shakes her head. “No, I was called onto another ward to help out there.” She and Serena are standing close together, their arms brushing, and now Bernie nudges Serena in the side. “I left you in very capable hands, though.”

Serena arches an eyebrow. “My, that is high praise coming from you,” she says, which for some reason makes Bernie blush. Bernie looks over at Evie and presses a finger to her lips, winking, and Evie giggles again. Serena puts her hands on her hips, frowns at both of them. “What have you two been gossiping about in my absence, hmm?”

“Nothing,” Evie says, at the same time Bernie shakes her head seriously and says, “Oh, I never stand for gossip, Ms Campbell.”

Someone calls to Bernie from across the ward, and she turns back to Evie. “I’ve got to go, but you take care, Evie, all right?” 

Evie nods. “I will.”

Bernie smiles at her and leaves, but Serena stays, sits on the edge of the bed beside her. “Are you really okay?” Serena asks. “You’ve spent a lot more time in hospital recently than I imagine anyone would like to.”

Evie shrugs. “It’s not so bad when it’s like this,” she says. “Way better than with my neck. And anyway, I’m interested in what goes on here. I’d rather be here than at the dentist.”

Serena laughs. “Now that I believe.”

Evie is quiet for a little while, wondering if she should dare, and then she says, “Can I … ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“It’s kind of…” Evie looks down at her hands. “Personal.”

Serena’s eyebrows knit together but she nods. “Go on.”

“Do you… I mean, are you…” Evie blushes; she doesn’t usually stammer like this. “Are you and Bernie, um—”

Serena’s hands stop moving where they have been straightening Evie’s blanket. “Evie,” she says, gently. “What are you trying to ask me?”

Evie feels herself blush harder and looks away again. “Sorry, it’s, um. I was just wondering if, if youandBerniearetogether,” she says in a rush. Serena doesn’t say anything, and when Evie dares to look at her, she is sitting there, her mouth open, looking shocked. “Sorry,” Evie says again. “I shouldn’t ask questions like that. I’m nosy, Mrs Bates always says.”

Serena smiles a little, but she still looks like what Dad would call ‘hit by a lorry.’ “Who’s Mrs Bates?”

“The lady next door who sometimes babysits us. She’s nice, I guess, but she always makes us eat old fruitcake and it’s pretty bad.”

“Oh dear,” Serena says. She looks like’s trying not to laugh but doesn’t know how, and then her face turns serious again. “Well, Evie,” she says, “I want to thank you for being brave enough to ask me. No matter what Mrs Bates says, curiosity is never a bad thing, and you were very polite in how you did it.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“Of course not. You’d have to do something far worse than that to get on my bad side.”

Evie sighs, relieved. 

“As for your question,” Serena says, and she looks a little uncomfortable. “The honest answer is, is … no.”

“Okay,” Evie says. 

“But may I ask you why you thought it might be yes?”

Evie shrugs, worried about embarrassing her, but figures she did ask so she must want to know. “I noticed the way you looked at her,” she finally says. She sees Bernie across the ward, then, talking to Uncle Raf, and lowers her voice even though Bernie can’t possibly hear. “Like you like her … well, like you _like_ -like her. You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Serena says faintly. She looks in the direction Evie is looking and jolts a bit when she sees Bernie. Her eyes follow her across the ward; Bernie looks over in their direction and stares right back at Serena for what feels like a very long time. They are speaking their secret eye-language again, and Evie feels embarrassed but also fascinated, like when there’s a kissing scene in one of the films she and Dad watch and she pretends to cover her eyes but really sneaks a peek through the gap between her fingers.

When Serena finally looks back to her, Evie raises an eyebrow, and grins when it makes Serena blush. That’s two out of two, now. She leans forward and whispers, “She looks at you like that too, you know.”

“Does she now,” Serena says, but it isn’t really a question. She isn’t sure if Serena knows the answer or not.

“You should tell her,” Evie says, sitting back in her bed. “That you like-like her. That’s what I think.”

Serena laughs and pats her on the shoulder. “Well thank you, Evie, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Evie hopes she will. She watches Serena watching Bernie yet again and rolls her eyes. _Grownups_.


	2. Liberty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone unfamiliar with Liberty, a look at [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBFXl5-H-BA) from 0:30 (Serena's scenes from 18x05 'Left Behind') will give you the pleasure ... ;)

The idea is brill. She knows it’s brill because of the way Eddie’s cheeks go red and his eye starts to twitch when she tells him, because that’s the face he always makes when he’s mad that she’s said something smart. She knows she’s no Brainiac, not like the chick she’s going to see, but she’s got what Mum calls ‘street-smarts,’ and that’s enough.

Blood rushing, heart pounding, she speeds off in his favourite car before he can follow her out of the living room with a half-empty can of beer, yelling abuse, and she plugs the address into the TomTom so she doesn’t have to waste energy reading road signs. When she gets there, she snags a spot in the disabled parking (no one will notice, she’s sure, and if they do she’ll just flirt her way out of a fine) and races into the lift, where she collides with a hot guy in a suit.

“Oh!” she exclaims, and the man raises his eyebrow at her, gives her back her arm.

“Hello,” he says. He points to the buttons as the lift doors close behind them. “Where are you headed?”

“Um…” she says, and realises she has no idea. She feels the stress of the day, her anger and her fight with Eddie, piling onto her eyelids and blinks back tears. “I… I don’t know…”

The man frowns, punches in the number for his own floor. “What seems to be the problem?” he asks. “Are you in need of medical attention?”

Libby shakes her head, fans at her eyes – she isn’t wearing waterproof mascara; today of all days! – and swallows the lump in her throat. “No,” she says, “I’m just … just upset. I’m looking for Serena – Serena Campbell. Do you know her?”

The man’s eyebrows lift and he nods. “In fact I do. Shall I take you to her?”

“Oh, yes, please!” she throws her arm around his neck (and he’s ripped, she notices, hanging on for maybe a moment longer than she should) when he’s reached out to press another button. “Thank you, um – what was your name?”

“Ric,” he says, patting her arm, “and it’s really no problem.”

“Liberty,” she says, extending a hand, which he shakes.

He squints at her for a moment and then smiles even wider than he had before. “Liberty,” he repeats. “That’s a … a lovely name. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He really is smiling wide – she wonders if he’s developing a crush on her. Men his age often do.

When the lift arrives at Serena’s floor, Ric leads her over to where a group of people are standing around, laughing. They all snap to attention when he arrives, and a man in a blue shirt says, “Ah, hi, Mr Griffin, what can we do you for this fine morning?”

Ric rolls his eyes and says, “Any sign of Ms Campbell?”

“I saw her go into theatre about an hour ago, but she should be out by now. Should I page her?”

But Libby is already tired of all this time-wasting and decides to take matters into her own hands. “Serena!” she calls. “Serena, are you here?”

“Are you going to be all right, Liberty?” Ric asks, and Liberty feels her eyes well up again. He’s just so _kind_.

“Thanks _so much_ for your help, Ricky, you _rock_.”

“You’re, ah, you’re welcome.” He gestures to the lift. “I’d best be off.” Then he grins. “Give my regards to Ms Campbell, won’t you?”

Well, she thinks, with satisfaction, Eddie might not realise how amazing she is, but at least she’s put _someone_ in a good mood. The thought of Eddie just makes her tear up again, though, and one more time, she cries out, “Serena!”

“Yes, yes, what on Earth is all this commotion a—Liberty,” Serena says, emerging from an office only to stop in her tracks, stunned. “Liberty,” she says again. “What are you – what are you doing here?”

The man with the blue shirt walks over and starts to explain that Mr Griffin brought her up in the lift, but the sight of Serena’s kind, surprised face and hideously ugly haircut is Liberty’s final straw. She’s been holding it together all morning and she just can’t do it any longer. “Oh, Serena!” she cries, and launches herself at her, relishing the warmth of her embrace as she cries into the shoulder of her also hideously-ugly shirt.

Serena is patting her back, murmuring, “There, there,” and then she finally draws back from Libby to look at her. “How about I make you a nice cup of tea and we have a chat in my office, hmm?”

Libby nods, sniffing, and follows numbly where Serena leads her. 

“And the rest of you would do well to stop standing around like malfunctioning robots and get back to work,” Serena snaps. “This is a hospital, not a cinema!”

People scatter. Libby sits in a green visitor’s chair next to Serena’s desk and looks around the room (which could do with a bit of sprucing up, she thinks, maybe a nice wall-hanging or two) while she waits for Serena to return with tea.

When she does, she sets a cup in front of Libby, takes a seat herself, and smiles at her. “Now, why is it you wanted to see me? No, no, don’t cry, it’s all right, just – just tell me. I’m not here to … to judge you.”

What an amazing woman, Libby thinks absently. Eddie was a fool to give her up. She takes a fortifying sip of hot, strong tea, swallows and says, “It’s about Eddie.”

Serena tenses, cup at her lips. “Ah,” she says. “I see.”

“Please!” Libby says, “Please, I know it’s totes weird to, like, seek you out for advice, but I … I just don’t know what else to do … who else to turn to … no one knows Eddie like you do and I—”

“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” Serena says. “Just please don’t start crying again.”

Libby nods miserably.

“Now what exactly happened?”

Serena is sitting there, so patient and understanding and willing to listen – so, like, _nice_ \-- that Libby just opens up and tells her _everything_. She’s like a waterfall of confessions, Serena like the great calm pool below that accepts her offerings (Libby has recently taken to writing poetry in her spare time, and she’s getting quite good. She’s thinking about publishing some of it on Tumblr).

When Libby finally finishes, Serena has drunk all her tea and is looking quite tired, but Libby knows doctors usually do. She’s probably done Serena a favour, giving her this break. She smiles at her and then says, “So? What do you think?”

“Well, I—” Serena coughs, swallows. “That was certainly a lot to take in.”

Libby nods. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an awesome listener?”

Serena smiles. “I just fear that I may not be the right person to help you out, Liberty.”

“Please, call me Libby.”

“Libby,” Serena corrects, and Libby beams. “And I’m sure you see why. My relationship with Edward wasn’t exactly … what I mean to say is, you know that it ended in divorce. And that that divorce was somewhat less than … amicable.” Serena is looking at her like she expects Libby to respond, but Libby just shakes her head, reaches over to grab Serena’s hand. 

“But you _know_ him,” she says. “C’mon, Serena, be awesome like I know you are and just give me some pointers? Please?”

Serena has just opened her mouth to reply when the door to the office opens to reveal a blond lady, kind of pretty if you like that sort of thing, but in serious need of a hairbrush. “Bernie!” Serena exclaims.

Bernie – and what kind of a name is _that_ , Liberty wonders; what some parents are thinking! – raises an eyebrow and looks between them. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Serena stands, smooths down her shirt, and gestures at Libby. “Bernie, this is Liberty – Libby,” she amends, when Libby waggles a finger at her. She looks back at Bernie. “Edward’s wife. Libby, this is my colleague and … and friend, Bernie Wolfe.”

“Ah,” Bernie says. “Right.” She shakes Libby’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Libby. Shall I leave you two alone?”

“No need,” Libby says kindly. “Any friend of Serena’s is a friend of mine.”

“Oh…kay,” Bernie says, with an awkward smile. Maybe she’s shy. “Please continue, then; I’ll just sit over here and do my … things,” she says. 

“You do that,” Serena says sternly, but she is looking at Bernie with a sparkle in her eye, like dewdrop diamonds on a rainy night. (Libby pulls out her iPhone to note that one down.) Bernie is smiling back, and even though she was here first, Libby has the sudden, unwelcome feeling that _she_ is the one who’s just walked in and interrupted something private.

She clears her throat, a subtle way of drawing Serena’s attention back to her. “You were saying?”

Serena is still looking at Bernie even though Bernie’s eyes are fixed firmly on the computer screen, her lips pressed together in concentration. “Ah – yes,” Serena says, “I was, wasn’t I?” She turns back to Libby, leans against her desk, and smiles. “May I be frank with you, Libby?”

Libby nods. 

“Good. The truth of it is, I know you love him, but Edward can be a bit of a bastard.” Libby gasps, and Serena pats her soothingly on the knee. “I know it’s hard to hear, but no one’s perfect, are they? There’s no harm in being honest with yourself. Edward is entitled, arrogant, dishonest, evasive, manipulative, selfish, shameless, crude, crass, repugnant, small-minded, unforgiving—”

Here Serena is interrupted when her friend Bernie starts to have a funny sort of a dry coughing fit; she turns around to check that she’s all right, and then turns back to Libby when she’s satisfied (though that takes a while). “Anyway,” she continues, “he has his flaws. You know that. I presume you knew that before you married him?”

Libby shrugs; rose-coloured glasses in the first throes of love are a universal constant, aren’t they? Mum told her it was inevitable that she would only see her husband’s faults later on, after they’d already been married for a while. That was just the way it worked.

Serena narrows her eyes, but goes on to say, “My only advice, Libby, is that you stand your ground. Remember that being a wife does not mean being a doormat. Your life is your own whether you have his name or not.” She turns back around and looks at Bernie again, who has raised her eyes from the computer and is gazing at Serena like—

—well. Like something out of the ‘sexy’ Harlequin imprint, really. People call Libby stupid because she’s young and blond and hot, but she isn’t stupid, not really: she bites down a gasp as everything falls into place.

“…to be strong,” Serena is saying, and Libby snaps back to the present. “Remember that you are your own woman. You are tough and, and intelligent, and Edward Campbell cannot tell you what to do. You may want him, you may love him, but you don’t need him. Understand?”

“Yes,” Libby says, feeling tears prick at her eyes again – she’ll have to stop at the ladies’ on the way out to fix her makeup. She stands and hugs Serena tightly, touched when she feels Serena return it. “Thanks a million, Serena. You’re the best ex an ex’s current wife could ask for!”

Bernie starts coughing again, and Libby leans over to look at her. “You should really watch that tickle,” she says. “It’s summer cold season, after all!”

“Uh,” Bernie says, “yes, thank you, Libby. I will.”

“Shall I see you out?” Serena asks, and Libby nods, links her arm through Serena’s as they head to the lift. The staff gawk at them as they pass, and Libby wonders why. Haven’t they ever seen a crying woman before?

Libby insists that Serena come with her down to the carpark so they can say a proper goodbye. When they reach the ground floor and step into the balmy air, Libby is overwhelmed by another wave of grateful emotion and hugs Serena again. “You’re amazeballs, Serena, seriously. Thank you so much.”

“You’re, ah, very welcome. I’m just glad I could help.”

“You deserve happiness, for realz, and I’m stoked you’ve found it.”

Serena blinks. “I’m sorry?”

Libby giggles, nudges her. “Oh, I get it, it’s a ‘secret,’ is it? Well, you don’t need to worry about me. Mum’s the word.”

Serena shakes her head. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

Libby rolls her eyes affectionately and leans in to stage-whisper, “About you and Bernie?”

“I—”

“I’m just so impressed with you, Rena,” Libby says. “Can I call you Rena? Coming out at your age, when you were married for a million years and you have a daughter and stuff? That can’t have been easy, but I guess love makes people do crazy things, huh?”

“Uh,” Serena says, “I suppose so?” She still looks flabbergasted – obviously she hadn’t expected Libby to figure it out.

Libby pats Serena on the arm and says, “Now you run back upstairs and have a good snog. I could tell she was just waiting for me to leave so she could snog _you_!”

“You … could?” Serena asks.

“For shiz,” Libby says sagely. “I have a fifth sense about these things. I just think you two are _adorbs_.” She squeezes Serena’s hand and waves as she heads to her car. “Ciao, Serena! See you round!”

When she gets home, feeling much happier now that she’s been given some good advice and deepened her friendship with Serena at the same time, she puts away her handbag, kicks off her shoes, goes to pick up Eddie’s laundry from where it’s strewn across the floor … and then stops. Why should she, actually? She doesn’t really _want_ to, does she? And what had Serena said – that she is her own woman, and she doesn’t have to do Edward’s bidding? She looks at the discarded shirts and then turns on her heel and walks out, heads to the kitchen to pour herself a generous glass of rosé.

It’s time she started showing Eddie that she, Liberty Charity Prudence Campbell, is nobody’s doormat.


	3. Jason

**Friday, July 8, 2016**

Auntie Serena is acting strange. Alan gave me this book for my birthday last week and told me I can write in it if I want to. I asked what should I write in it and he said anything I want. Today I have been thinking Auntie Serena is acting strange.

She doesn’t seem to be sleeping well and is clumsier than usual. Normally she is very careful about the plates, always saying ‘Jason, you have to be careful not to stack the plates too close in the dishwasher because they might chip.’ But yesterday she pulled out two and they were chipped and I know I didn’t do it (I am always careful not to stack them too close). As there is no one else with access to our dishwasher it is only logical that it was her. In fact I know it was her because I asked her and she admitted that she has been ‘somewhat muddle-headed’ and ‘distracted’ lately. Then she apologised. I said chipped plates don’t make much difference to me and maybe she should apologise to the plate as it was the one that had a chip. She said ‘on its shoulder’ and laughed. I watched a rerun of _QI_.

I have been researching via Google and have formulated the hypothesis that Auntie Serena is going through the early stages of perimenopause, colloquially referred to as ‘The Change.’ This would account for her uncharacteristic behaviour as well as her poor concentration. I often witness her staring at the wall, chewing her pen, when she has previously claimed to be filling in the daily Sudoku or writing a report for Mr Hanssen. Mr Hanssen is strong. Other symptoms I have observed include appearing flushed, jumping when I address her, ~~and consuming large amounts of wine and chocolate~~. (Upon realising that the latter constitutes standard behaviour rather than a deviation I have erased it from my list of data.)

I intend to continue monitoring the situation in order to present Auntie Serena with a possible diagnosis and/or determine the next course of action.

 

**Tuesday, July 26, 2016**

**LIST OF SYMPTOMS OBSERVED IN ACCORDANCE WITH HYPOTHESIS (AS OF TODAY) (SEE ABOVE DATE):**  
\- Fatigue  
\- Decreased ability to concentrate  
\- Hot flashes  
\- Sweating  
\- Forgetfulness (e.g. frequent instances of silence followed by ‘what was I saying?’)  
\- Trouble sleeping (walking around the house at night, sometimes watching the telly)  
\- Mood swings (sometimes going quickly from happiness/laughter to seriousness or irritability with no apparent cause)  
\- Auntie Serena no longer taking birth control pills – perhaps a sign of decreased/irregular menstruation?

 **LIST OF SYMPTOMS OBSERVED NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HYPOTHESIS (AS OF TODAY) (SEE ABOVE DATE):**  
\- Giggling  
\- Talking on the phone more than usual, sometimes late at night (despite having once told me that she liked to Skype with me (Jason) despite not generally being fond of phone calls)  
\- Humming  
\- Whistling  
\- Singing old rock songs in the shower (the tiled walls and raised ceiling make for excellent acoustics, resulting in my hearing her when I am passing by her bedroom on the way to my own)   
\- Frequently engaging me in conversation on the topic of her haircut (specifically as to whether I believe it to be ‘too old-fashioned’ or not) and the shade of her lipstick (specifically as to whether I think it ‘suits her’ or whether it ‘clashes with her blouse’).

 

**Saturday, August 6, 2016**

I have continued to collate data with the intention of proving my hypothesis that Auntie Serena is ‘going through’ perimenopause. Although many of her symptoms confirm my suspicions, the introduction in recent weeks of other less relevant factors have necessitated that I reconsider my findings. After keeping a logbook of the times/dates/locations of these instances, and questioning Auntie Serena as to those that may have occurred in my absence, I have determined that my initial presumption may have been incorrect.

I prepared a list of questions for Auntie Serena regarding such topics as vaginal dryness and the regularity of her menstrual cycle, but then I told Alan about it when we talked on Skype and Alan said I shouldn’t give it to her. I asked why. Alan said it is a very personal topic and Auntie Serena might not like to be asked about it, also that she is a doctor so she will already know if she has it and what to do. I said I just want to help because she’s acting strange. Alan asked how is she acting strange and I told him. When I told him he started to laugh. He said he was not laughing at me, but at the description of Auntie Serena’s behaviour. He said, ‘I think maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree there, mate.’ After informing him that there is no tree in my bedroom and after him telling me that that is an idiomatic expression meaning I ‘had the wrong idea’ he asked me questions. These were the questions:

\- Has Auntie Serena seemed happier than usual? (Answer, yes; see: giggling, humming, whistling, singing old rock songs in the shower)  
\- Has she seemed more conscious of her appearance than usual? (Answer, yes; see: frequently engaging me in conversation re: haircut and lipstick)  
\- Is there anyone she seems extra happy to be around or anyone she talks about a lot? (Answer, possibly; she smiles a lot when we go to Albie’s with Dr. Bernie after work and often speaks about Dr. Bernie or speaks with Dr. Bernie on the phone)

Then one hour was over so Alan said he would leave the real detective work to me and logged off. Now I have to go because the documentary about Pompeii will start soon.

 

**Wednesday, August 24, 2016**

I have altered my hypothesis that Auntie Serena is ‘going through’ perimenopause. Having extensively reviewed and analysed the data I have collected over the past seven weeks, I have concluded that Auntie Serena is in love with Dr. Bernie. As this condition presents no immediate danger to her health I will now end this study.

 

**Monday, September 12, 2016**

I believe I erred in my declaration that being in love presents no immediate danger to Auntie Serena’s health. In the two weeks that have passed since I drew my conclusion, I have witnessed the following:

\- Auntie Serena walking into a door when smiling at Dr. Bernie  
\- Auntie Serena spilling coffee on her hand after she and Dr. Bernie started laughing about something  
\- Auntie Serena tripping over her feet and landing on the floor after deciding to wear the ‘sexy shoes’ Elinor gave her  
\- Auntie Serena breaking two wine glasses because she knocked them over (once while talking about Dr. Bernie, the other while talking to Dr. Bernie on the phone)  
\- Continued distraction and mood swings

I am going to talk to Auntie Serena about her condition and then I will return to report the results.

…

I am back now. I have just spoken to Auntie Serena. At first she didn’t answer my questions (her mouth was opening and closing but there was no sound, like a fish) but then she said, ‘I should have known you’d pick up on it sooner or later. A blind priest would pick up on it at this point.’ (The last part she said very quietly and I don’t know if she wanted me to hear it but I did as my hearing is very good.)

She told me my hypothesis is correct and she does love Dr. Bernie. I said yes, everybody loves their good friends and Dr. Bernie is a very good friend, but Auntie Serena said no, this is different. I said how. She said, ‘Because the way I love Bernie is more than just friendly. She is my friend, yes, but I am _in love_ with her.’ She asked if I understand the difference and I said yes, it means she wants to kiss Dr. Bernie like in films. Auntie Serena said yes, that is part of it, but it also means she wants to spend time with Dr. Bernie outside work and even go with her on dates, like when I took Celia to see the butterflies.

I asked her if Dr. Bernie knows that. Auntie Serena was quiet for a while and then she said no, she hasn’t told her. I said she should because Dr. Bernie loves her too. Auntie Serena said very softly, ‘Why do you think that, Jason?’ So I showed her the list of times/dates/instances I observed while working on the ward. Auntie Serena was very shocked to see the list. I told her it was evidence that Dr. Bernie loves her too because each time Auntie Serena dropped or spilled something or laughed Dr. Bernie was there too and always helped her right away. Also she smiles and laughs at Auntie Serena’s jokes and I do not think her jokes are funny. (Auntie Serena laughed when I said that but I don’t know why as it wasn’t a joke.) But the main thing I said is that Auntie Serena could not spend so much time staring into Dr. Bernie’s eyes if Dr. Bernie did not spend the same amount of time staring into Auntie Serena’s eyes. It was this logic that seemed to convince her.

I said I don’t know if Dr. Bernie hums or sings or whistles as I do not live with her. I offered to go and stay with her for a while to gather further evidence on this but Auntie Serena said no, that would not be necessary. She said, ‘You know what, Jason? I’m going to do it. I’m going to tell her.’ I said good as we are running out of wine glasses.


	4. Alex

Perhaps ironically, she almost says no. She would have said no, and said it without question, if it were anyone but Roger who’d asked, but they’ve been mates for years, worked together for the first time when Alex was fresh out of med school, and she’s always had a soft spot for the guy. Besides all that, it’s a fantastic opportunity – Holby is a great hospital, the neurosurgery ward has a stellar reputation, and it’s not like the assignment is permanent. She stands in Roger’s office, reading over the paperwork, and thinks, _It’s just two weeks. I can do this._

So she goes. Signs the forms, drives over, meets up with Guy Self (still obnoxious, still talented) and throws herself into the work with genuine passion. A quick computer search reveals to her that Bernie is no longer assigned to Keller, and she determines to do everything she can to avoid AAU.

It even works. There’s one close call, AAU paging up for an anaesthetist when Alex has already scrubbed in, so she defers the duty to an especially young, studious colleague, observing behind the glass and all but chomping at the bit. She smiles indulgently, pretends it’s she who’s doing him the favour and not the other way round.

It’s working; she’s working; she’s even managing to get through some days without her mind drifting back to Bernie every four seconds, but on day eleven of her fourteen-day secondment, her luck runs out. She’s been so careful to steer clear of AAU – sometimes even taking the stairs to avoid the risk of the lift – that she hadn’t given any thought to the fact that there are other places they could meet. The carpark, for instance, would have been a possibility; the ladies’ on the ground floor before the start of shift; the roof, where Alex sometimes goes for a breather (but not a smoke, never a smoke).

Or, as it turns out, Pulses. On an early morning, damp and misty and grey outside, she sees the flash of wild blond hair, the line of strong shoulders, the overlarge runners, and goes cold. Hot. Still. She remembers herself in an instant and manages to perform a quick if singularly undignified duck around a pillar, attracting the questioning gaze of a young woman with huge dark eyes. Alex rolls her own eyes in what she hopes is a sisterly fashion and the woman smiles a knowing smile, goes back to her paper. Alex, unable to stop herself, edges back the way she came and peers around her protective concrete block.

Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her trousers – a text – and she jumps. _Some soldier you are, Dawson,_ she thinks sarcastically, though she knows she’d take a warzone over an impromptu confrontation with Bernie Wolfe any day. Bernie is waiting in line for coffee – three people before her, damn it – but hasn’t yet had cause to look around. Alex uses the time to torture herself, running her stupid, hungry eyes down Bernie’s gorgeous hips and legs and back up to her neck, her hair, her hair that looks so much softer now than it ever did when Alex had her fingers tangled through it. But then, Alex’s hair looks a lot better these days, too. Trading sand for conditioner will do that.

It’s only when Bernie laughs, a proverbial scalpel through the gut, that Alex realises she isn’t waiting alone. The other woman, the elegant dark-haired consultant from AAU, had been standing off to the side, talking on her mobile, but she’s returned now to Bernie’s side and is telling her something Alex can’t make out. Ms Campbell gestures theatrically, rolling her eyes, and Bernie laughs again, leans into her, her entire coat-and-scarf-clad body an invitation. Ms Campbell stands close and gazes up at her, laughter in her eyes. Bernie’s laughter dies out as she gazes back. Alex’s stomach turns over.

It’s busy, at this time of day, and Alex watches as Bernie steps up to the counter and orders, pays. After she does, Ms Campbell steps out of the line to wait, leans against the glass cabinet to continue talking. They are both invested in their conversation, eyes rarely straying, and Alex watches it, watches the ease of Bernie’s posture (the same ease Alex had so craved and coveted, had devoted so much time to drawing out) as she stands there, completely comfortable despite the noise and pre-shift bustle. They are so engrossed in each other that, when their coffee is ready, the barista has to lean across the counter to tap Ms Campbell on the shoulder to get her attention.

Alex watches them stride over to the lift, Bernie’s head bent slightly toward Ms Campbell, an effort to hear her over the din that is Pulses at 0800 on a Thursday morning. Alex’s phone buzzes again and she presses a hand to it, absurdly willing it quiet, as she watches them wait. They are both carrying shoulder bags – have they arrived together, Alex wonders, with a hot, irrational, shameful stab of jealousy, from Bernie’s place? From Ms Campbell’s? – now armed with coffee, but that doesn’t stop Bernie from pressing her hand to the small of her companion’s back when the lift doors open and she guides her in.

Alex is careful to duck further behind the pillar as the doors close, but she is still just in time to catch the loving, attentive smile Bernie gives Ms Campbell as they do. The lift moves, and Alex is left standing there, hiding, hurt and empty and foolish and burned, her white-knuckled grip on the phone in her pocket.

The phone. She pulls it out, expecting something work-related, and is faintly, pleasantly surprised to see that it isn’t that at all; that it is rather an invitation to coffee from the girl she’d met a couple of weeks ago at St. James’, the quirky, witty cardiothoracic consultant with the blinding smile. She’d tried a couple of times already, casual and kind, texting Alex now and then to ask her about her day, to invite her for a drink or a pub meal somewhere cosy. Bernie’s lips and hands and eyes still branded into her memory, Alex had always politely declined; had figured it wasn’t fair, that she shouldn’t try to start something when she was still so hung up, but now, re-reading the message, re-reading it again, she wonders.

 _Just thought I’d say hey,_ Naseem has written. _If you’re up for a drink tonight, let me know. If not, that’s cool too!_

The second message: _A girl can always try. ;)_

Alex thinks about Bernie, about her lips and hands and eyes, about the way those eyes were glued to Ms Campbell, her body – both their bodies – screaming want and possessiveness and contentment. How right they looked. She thinks of Bernie’s secret smile, Bernie’s ridiculous laugh, how those once-precious things are no longer directed at her. How if Bernie has indeed managed to pick up her life off the floor and shake it out, then she hasn’t done it with Alex in mind.

She thinks about Bernie, and she thinks about Naseem – brilliant, gorgeous, willing, decisive, new – and texts back a _yes_.


	5. Serena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has taken a bit of a detour off the Original Concept Highway. It was supposed to be 5 Times Someone Else Realised They Were in Love (And the 1 Time They Did). It is now: 4 Times Someone Else Realised They Were in Love, The 2 Times They Did, And The 1 Time They Did Something About It. So this chapter is from Serena's perspective, the next will be from Bernie's, and the final chapter will be the resolution that follows the realisation on both sides. SORRY FOR MESSING WITH THE SACRED STRUCTURE but it was necessary so as to stop cockblocking them (or whatever the queer middle-aged lady equivalent is of that; if anyone knows, please tell me).
> 
> Thanks so very much to all of you for the lovely feedback - your comments and kudos never fail to brighten my day! <3

For Serena, it’s that day, the day they open the trauma bay and Celia is admitted with a metal arrow embedded in her abdomen. It is Bernie sweeping back onto the ward to come to the rescue, Serena’s dishevelled knight in shining scrubs; it is Bernie coming back and dropping everything without thought, dropping the stress with Marcus and the lawyer and the divorce in order to take Serena outside to get some fresh air – in order to help her, support her, calm her down and fiddle about with her perspective on the world until things looked clearer.

It’s later that night at Albie’s, when Bernie lets her guard drop and Serena sees the full force of her desire for the first time: those smoky eyes as good as undressing her, those lips twisting behind her wineglass, promising things Serena has to go home and think about later—

—and there it is. Because for some reason, be it Shiraz or Jason’s presence or fish and chips or the stress of the day, Serena somehow, embarrassingly, doesn’t twig. Not immediately. She smiles, flirts casually until Jason’s protests grow too strong and they bid Bernie farewell in favour of chips and giant gherkins and pickled eggs. They go, and Serena somehow fails to link the spreading warmth in her belly with the woman whose eyes she has been gazing into all evening. She fails to draw a connection between her inordinately good mood and the fact that Bernie has made her feel wanted, desired, _appreciated_ as a woman as well as a surgeon and administrator and friend.

So off they go home, Serena humming to herself during the drive, sashaying into the en suite to indulge in a long, hot shower (and maybe even singing a little, if she’s honest) before collapsing onto her marvellous sheets on her marvellous mattress, utterly bone-tired and content. She rolls over, sighing, expecting sleep to descend post-haste, but it doesn’t. Because of Bernie.

Bernie. 

Serena is thinking about Bernie. Snapshots of the evening just gone branded into her memory, replaying the images over and over again: Bernie’s eyes as they watched her, as they moved with an exceptional lack of discretion between eyes and mouth; Bernie’s body titled towards her, open and tempting; Bernie’s tongue as it darted out to wet her lips. The fact that Serena had watched these things, had noted them, every time. Bernie’s smile, secret and teasing and heated and hiding so many things that Serena would love to discover, to touch, to taste, right here in this bed—

—and then she’s gasping, shuddering, coming, a single sweeping thumb-brush to her clit enough to finish her off because she’s slipped her fingers inside herself and is drawing out her own pleasure to thoughts of Bernie, memories of Bernie, fantasies of Bernie, and she hasn’t even done it with conscious thought.

She falls back onto the bed, against her veritable Mt Everest of pillows, and pants for breath. Lifts her glistening fingers and tastes herself, groans when the image, unbidden, of Bernie doing the same rips through her hazy mind and spent body.

 _It’s just the Shiraz,_ she tells herself, rolling over again and trying to slow her thundering heartbeat. _It’s just the Shiraz._

In the morning, when she wakes to fast-fading visions of Bernie’s hot skin and hotter smile, Serena buries her face in her pillow and admits that maybe it’s not just the Shiraz.

So it happened, she tells herself. No point denying it, no point dwelling. So what if she’s attracted to her best friend? It happens. Two people who so quickly establish such an outstanding personal and professional rapport are bound to experience some bleed-over. It’s natural. Serena has spent years flirting shamelessly with Ric, with Raf, with Hanssen, with patients, and it’s never meant anything, has it? Why should this be any different?

Bernie is a beautiful woman; that must be clear to anyone with two functioning irises. She is also medically brilliant, dedicated to a fault, one of the best surgeons – if not the best – Serena has ever worked with, and she wears that cool competence on the ward and in theatre like Serena wears her favourite pair of leopard-print Jimmy Choos – like she was made for it. Like it’s what she was born to do. It’s only natural that Serena would develop a little crush on someone who hits all her buttons the way Bernie does. That Bernie is flirtatious right back at her means nothing. That Bernie happens to be interested in women means nothing. No need to go making mountains out of molehills, now, is there?

Their friendship is solid. Their working relationship is solid. If their flirtatious banter over delicate surgical procedures is also solid, then what does it matter? It relaxes them. It suits them. It’s just how they are.

This perfectly logical line of reasoning buoys her along through all the time it takes her to get ready, to get in the car, to get to the hospital. She has worked herself into quite a good mood (which has nothing to do with the orgasm of last night, her brain firmly reminds her) by the time she strides in to Pulses, and she is entertaining herself by alarming sleepy, under-caffeinated F1s with her chipper smile, when, perhaps inevitably, Bernie walks in and joins her in the queue.

“Morning, Ms Campbell,” she says, giving her a serious nod, but the light in her eyes belies her laughter.

“Good morning, Ms Wolfe.”

Bernie’s eyes scan over the menu board on the wall, though she surely knows its contents off by heart. “I trust you had a pleasant evening?” she asks, and Serena looks over at her sharply, filled with the sudden, irrational terror that Bernie knows exactly what she got up to last night.

“Uh,” she says, eloquent, when Bernie raises an eyebrow at her.

“I just meant with the fish and chips,” Bernie says. “After you left.”

“Yes,” Serena says. “Yes, of course.” Her eyes wander desperately over the display case of sweets, and she wonders if it’s too early to justify a _pain au chocolat_. She looks back up at Bernie and says, “It was very nice, thank you. The, ah … evening.”

Bernie blinks. “That’s good then.” She steps forward to order and Serena spends a few thoughtless moments distracted by the fall of her hair as she fumbles about with her wallet, handing over a tenner and accepting her change with a smile. It is only when the barista has passed over their prizes, Bernie remarking on the unusually smooth run she’d had on the way in, that Serena registers what has just happened.

She opens her mouth to ask, but Bernie is already pressing the small wrapped package into her hands. At Serena’s look, she just shrugs, albeit a little self-consciously. “Looked like you could do with it this morning, that’s all.”

“That’s – that’s very sweet of you,” Serena manages. She follows her over to the lift, speechless, coveted _pain au chocolat_ in hand.

*

So what if Bernie occasionally buys her pastries as comfort food? That’s what friends _do_ for one another. Nothing to get all weak-kneed about.

So what if she grows ever-more conscious of the angle of Bernie’s cheekbones, the control of her fingers, the subtle quirk of her smile? It’s only natural when she’s working across from her in theatre every day, nothing but blood and guts and surgical masks between them.

It isn’t going to stop her from indulging it, from enjoying it, from drawing that slow-burning smile from Bernie’s lips whenever she can.

*

Serena goes on in this fashion for some time: feel it, explain it away, have fun with it, until one day, she realises that the second step isn’t achieving a lot and starts to just bypass it altogether. It is a few days after this, after she notices that things tend to run more smoothly when she just accepts that this is their way, that Evie Fletcher ends up on AAU. Again.

She loves the girl, she really does, and that is the only reason (well, that and Fletch’s flailing arms) that she doesn’t raise the question of why a routine appendectomy was brought up to her ward instead of being admitted to A&E, where it belonged. But one look at Evie’s bright, brave face is reason enough for Serena to let it slide, just this once. She operates and it all goes smoothly, thank God; one small blessing in the ridiculous strain of a year this child and her father have endured. 

Serena sits and chats with her before she’s discharged, marvels once again at her maturity, her ease, and then watches in astonishment when Evie, usually pre-teen confidence personified, stumbles over her words as she asks about Bernie. About her and Bernie. If they’re a couple.

Miraculously, Serena manages to navigate her way through the conversation with some semblance of grace; say no; asks why she wants to know. Is caught for a long moment when she feels Bernie’s eyes on her from all the way across the ward, feels a telling stirring in her gut in response, cannot pretend that she doesn’t understand the meaning of the heat in that gaze.

And then the bold little thing tells her to tell Bernie, as though Serena’s feelings are a flashing neon sign, as though all the world and a twelve-year-old girl can see something to which Serena has been blind. Evie is sweet and she means well, there’s no doubt about that, but Serena knows something Evie doesn’t: that Bernie’s eyes, lust-dark and drawn to Serena’s movements though they may be, are also wide for a different reason, and that reason is fear.

*

A week later, at 10:42 in the evening, Serena’s phone starts buzzing. Jason is staying with Alan and Serena is taking advantage of his absence to drink too much Shiraz, kick her feet up on the coffee table (behaviour that is, at all other times, strictly Not Allowed), and read a medical journal in the peace and quiet of a room without a quiz show playing in the background. She grabs the phone from its precarious perch on the arm of the sofa and glances down, expecting Alan, hoping for Elinor, and is surprised to see that it’s Bernie. She knows Bernie tends to be early to bed and early to rise, so she bites her lip, hopes nothing’s the matter, and answers.

“I haven’t woken you, have I?” Bernie says in response to her greeting.

“Not at all,” Serena says. “I’ve just been enjoying my evening of freedom while it lasts. Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine,” Bernie says, too quickly, and then gives an awkward half-laugh. “Sorry. I just…” she stops.

Serena frowns. “What?”

Bernie sighs. “I had a moment.” Then: “A bad dream sort of moment.”

“Ah,” Serena says. “Do you – do you want to talk about it?”

“Not much,” Bernie says, then tells her anyway. “It’s a recurring one.” She doesn’t say how often and Serena doesn’t ask, afraid to break the spell of her confidence. “I … I dream that I’m operating, back out in the field, and there are just … too many bodies coming in, too fast, for me to get to them all. Eventually the people bringing them in start to fall, too, and I have to drag them all in myself. I don’t have enough time to tend to everyone and they all—” she clears her throat. “It’s not so nice.”

“No, it doesn’t sound it,” Serena huffs, a compassionate almost-laugh fuelled of her astonishment at how blasé Bernie can be.

“I have … methods of coping, but sometimes it’s good to hear someone else’s voice right … right after.” She pauses. “I hope it’s okay that I called you.”

Serena feels her heart well, bites down on the desire to offer to come over, to comfort her, to—

“It’s more than okay, Bernie,” she says instead. “I’m glad you did. The _Journal of Vascular Surgery_ and I were starting to get rather lonely.”

“Oh? No content stimulating enough for Serena Campbell?”

“I’ll think you’ll have to be the judge of that.” The journal is lying open across her knees, and she flicks through it, the phone wedged against her shoulder. “Hold on … where was it, page 37 … there we go. Listen to this.” And she proceeds to read through the risk factors and outcomes of post-op ischemic colitis in endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, thrilling at Bernie’s commentary – sometimes impressed, sometimes sarcastic, always engaged – and, most of all, at the way that fragile crack in her voice has all but vanished by the time they’re done. Warm and content from more than the wine, Serena pulls the phone away from her ear to check the time and gasps when she sees it’s after half twelve.

“Oh, Bernie,” she says, “I’m sorry, you ought to have been asleep hours ago.”

Bernie chuckles, warm and intimate through the phone. “I think I’ll live,” she murmurs. “This has been much nicer than sleeping.”

Serena doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know how to translate the warmth in her cheeks and her chest into words, but then she doesn’t have to worry because Bernie is saying, “Thank you,” as soft and shy as she’s ever heard, and Serena aches, physically _aches_ with the desire to be with her, beside her, to see her face as she says it.

“You’re most welcome,” she says, instead of _of course_ , instead of _my pleasure_ , instead of _this was the nicest phone call I’ve had in a while_. “Any time,” she says. “Really.” 

“Thanks,” Bernie says again. “And I’d very much like to offer to return the favour, should you ever wake suddenly with trauma-inducing visions of Edward and his Embryo.”

“Good heavens, now there’s a thought that’s going to fester.” She grins. “Do you promise to help me take my mind off it?”

“Oh, you can count on it.” Bernie’s voice has dropped low, and Serena realises, as her heart picks up speed, that it is in response to her own flirtatious tone. They are both quiet a long few moments, Serena trying not to think about how this is edging dangerously close to something she might not be able to back away from and she isn’t quite ready, not yet.

Neither is Bernie, it seems, because she sighs into the absence of sound and says, “I’d best let you go then. I’ve commandeered enough of your time as it is.”

“Always the major,” Serena teases.

“Ha ha. Thanks again, Serena. I – I feel better.”

“Good,” Serena says emphatically. “I’m glad to hear it. Now go to sleep, Ms Wolfe, and I’ll see you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning.”

“Goodnight to you too,” Bernie says, but Serena can hear that she’s smiling. 

*

Fate has a sense of irony, it seems – either that or Berenice Wolfe is clairvoyant, because the next day, of all days, is the day Liberty Campbell races onto AAU and somehow deems it appropriate to cry on Serena’s shoulder about Edward. She’d think he’d put Liberty up to it, honestly, if she didn’t wholeheartedly believe that Liberty wouldn’t risk messing up her makeup for the sake of a prank.

It’s all a bit surreal, really, The Embryo sitting across from her, weeping into her cup of tea, deferring to Serena’s knowledge of her husband. Once she’s finally managed to get Liberty to stop crying, Serena learns that the problem is that Edward doesn’t take her seriously. ( _Small wonder_ , Serena thinks tartly, _as you are a foetus with the intellect of a chickpea_.) He doesn’t _listen_ to her, she wails. He doesn’t support her newfound vision to become a millionaire through her online jewellery business (she already has four customers! Doesn’t he get that that’s, like, awesome?).

Serena had sat down with the view of having a bit of a laugh at both Edward and Liberty’s expense (and is already looking forward to regaling a hiccoughing Bernie with the details of this unbelievable encounter later on), but by the time she has parsed Libby’s absurd speech enough to understand what she’s saying, she finds herself – damn this inconvenient desire to help other people – doing the unthinkable, and feeling _sorry_ for her. She’s so young, so misguided; she’s shallow as a kiddie pool and about as bright, but is that really her fault? After all, Serena had married Edward at the age of 25, too, hadn’t she? Is she really in a position to judge?

Bernie comes in right on cue, and the look on her face when she learns who Liberty is will forever be burned into Serena’s consciousness as an instant pick-me-up on a bad day. Astonished and uncomfortable though Bernie is at being permitted to stay (when she would clearly rather remove a few pieces of shrapnel from somebody’s spine), she manages to restrain herself: to only stifle a laugh three times, to only quirk an eyebrow in Serena’s direction twice. Only once do they lock eyes in a way that makes Serena’s breath catch in her throat, but Liberty corrects that with efficiency. 

Much as Serena would jump at the opportunity to cause Edward pain, embarrassment, discomfort or a combination of all three, she doesn’t have any desire to interfere in a way that will draw herself to his attention. She doesn’t want to sabotage his relationship, after all – God forbid he drop Liberty and start banging on her own door again. Alone the image of his patronising sneer directed at Jason is enough to make her blood boil.

She sends Liberty off with a handful of well-intentioned if platitudinous words, and wonders at the sincerity of the poor woman’s gratitude; wonders, briefly, how many friends she actually has. She can’t have a great deal in common with Edward, not if she’s interested in anything other than drinking and lying.

She thinks she’s finally gotten rid of her when Liberty – bloody Liberty – starts on about Bernie, and this is somehow so much worse than when Evie shyly presented her assumptions about their relationship, because Liberty is … she’s _Liberty_. And now, it seems, she and Bernie are sleeping together! It’s a given! She is being playfully instructed by Liberty to go and kiss Bernie, who has apparently wanted to kiss Serena all day! The _nerve_.

She needs a drink. She watches Liberty strut off to her car on impossibly tall high heels and then checks her watch. 11:53. Dear God.

Serena heads back to the office via the espresso machine and is met with Bernie, Bernie’s quips and her laughing eyes and her warm, welcoming friendship, and Serena looks at her, looks at the mess of her hair and her lopsided left scrub shoulder and the flick of her wrist as she gestures and thinks, _I want to kiss her_.

After that, she knows, it’s just a matter of time. A ticking bomb that’s going, without doubt, to go off.

She doesn’t know when. She doesn’t know where. She doesn’t know what the circumstances will be or who will move first; she doesn’t know if they’ll pounce on one other, if it will be slow, it if will happen at work or in the bathroom at Albie’s (oh _God_ , why does that turn her on so?) or maybe at her place one evening when Jason is gone. She just knows it will.

Three times lucky, three strikes and you’re out: Evie (one), Liberty (two), and then Jason, a few weeks later, sitting before her with an earnest face and a list of symptoms, a list of _evidence_ , no less, outlining the impeccable logic of her love for Bernie and Bernie’s reciprocal love for her. Her hurt at the way Bernie lied to her, during the mess with Cameron, makes so much more sense when read through the lens of love, of romantic foolery, of the kind of wishful thinking that comes with unplanned, unexpected, head-over-heels, old-enough-to-know-better infatuation. And she does know better, she knows so much better than to fall for a cheat and a liar, again, but Bernie is so much more than just those things. Serena knows this. Bernie is amazing, is dazzling, is a gift; she is kind and compassionate and dedicated and so full of love for her work and her patients – for anything and anyone she cares deeply about – that she spends all her time fighting to keep it in. She doesn’t know how to express her emotions and she doesn’t know how to handle it when someone else expresses theirs, but her heart is good and she tries. Maybe she fails, sometimes, maybe she fails more often than not, but she _tries_ , and that’s what matters.

So Serena tells Jason she’s going to do it, she’s going to tell her, though she still hasn’t the faintest idea when. It won’t be today, it won’t be tomorrow; it probably won’t be next week. But she’s going to tell her, and she’s going to kiss her, and she’s going to relish every moment of playful, flirtatious build-up until she does.

It’s only a matter of time.


	6. Bernie

She’s far too old and cynical now to believe in love at first sight, but even she, Berenice Griselda Wolfe, professional screw-up, has to admit that there was something there from the start. The phone-call: Marcus’ voice dropping away as she spotted a small, angry woman gesturing wildly at her car; the text, far less interesting than the prospect of walking over, fag still unlit on her lips, and engaging this electric ball of energy in conversation.

(She’ll only admit later that that was what did it: Serena’s fire, hot and bright and pulling her nearer, inviting her in from that moment on.)

The stupid quip about the alternator, Serena’s firm handshake and open smile, a day turned a little brighter for a playful exchange with a smart, attractive woman of a certain age.

They orbit each other, somehow, crossing paths where they shouldn’t, where the logic of a large hospital and different floors and conflicting shifts should be working against them. The brush of warm fingers against her arm, the tilt of an elegant neck, the quirk of a smile – Serena, less like fire and more like the sun, like a celestial body brightening Bernie’s long, busy, lonely days full of strangers.

The affair comes out: Alex, Marcus, Bernie’s perpetual identity as a lying cheat who can’t be trusted. Serena’s disapproving gaze, her cool words, her colder dismissal; a full 180 degrees away from the warm invitations for coffee, for a drink, for a chat that had been extended what feels like mere moments before. The warmth that is Serena draws away from her, takes with it light; leaves Bernie in the dark and the cold of her room at a colourless four-star, the kind that pretends at a cheer it can never achieve. Vicious barbs alternating with self-pitying pleas from her husband. Nothing but goodbye – and well-deserved, too – from Alex. Complete radio silence from her children. Marcus’ children.

And then, the unthinkable, the impossibility to end all others: Serena forgives her. Doesn’t dwell, doesn’t accuse, doesn’t tell her she feels betrayed; doesn’t draw out a pained and stuttering apology that leaves Bernie wrecked from the inside-out, her pride in tatters. Serena isn’t Marcus; Serena doesn’t make her pay for her guilt with interest, as though the guilt itself weren’t payment enough. She just forgives. Draws a veil. Challenges her to an arm-wrestling match, the spark in her eyes stirring something deep and dangerous low in Bernie’s gut, the kind of something that she recognises immediately, sharply, and just as immediately and sharply squashes down. _Do not engage_ , she tells herself, an order.

Bernie throws the match, desperate as she is to keep that teasing smile on Serena’s face, and when Serena smirks her way out of the office, the warmth and pressure of her fingers still echoing fresh against Bernie’s skin, she already knows she isn’t going to obey.

She wonders, much later, if there is a single moment, but she rather thinks that it was a series of moments: the delicious sum total of several small, appetising parts. The tally piles higher and higher in her mind even as she works for hours each day to ignore it: the low velvet slide of Serena’s voice as they flirt over blood and tissue; Serena’s breathtaking competence during the same. Her bedside manner, the perfect cocktail of kindness, patience, forthright understanding and compassion. Serena’s eyes as they flit up to Bernie’s and stay there, dark and deep and telling, crinkling at the corners when Bernie cracks jokes just to make her smile beneath the mask. The flirting, easy and thoughtless and, by now, as crucial as breathing, as though either of them would know how to go without it. (Bernie tries, once, to keep things straight between them, and lasts all of seventeen minutes. For fifteen of them, Serena isn’t even in the room.)

Glasses of wine at Albie’s. Cups of coffee from Pulses. Slow walks back to their cars, lingering in the summer air for just a few minutes more of conversation. Serena’s breakdown in the Peace Garden over Arthur, her inexplicable willingness to show Bernie – about as compassionate as a rake, Marcus used to say – her vulnerability, her grief, her depth of emotion; to ask for and allow herself to be comforted.

Maybe that was the moment, or that one, or one of the thirty-five moments before. Maybe it was the time Serena gave her the back massage, the time she’d said yes before her sabotaging brain could intervene. _Turns out I’m fussier than I thought about who puts their hands on me_ , she’d said, but Serena is something different. From the start.

Then there are the moments that don’t make sense, that don’t fit into the mould; the moments when Bernie’s fragile heart, so riddled with the disease of betrayal, of undeserved second chances, swells to bursting at the sight of this woman at unguarded moments: the way she tosses her hands up in the air when she gets frustrated, the way she rolls her eyes, the way she teases Ric and Raf and Fletch and Morven and even Hanssen; the way she commands attention by her presence, by the glint in her eyes or the twist of her mouth, without a word. Half a smile directed at Bernie as they pass one another, ships in the night, on an especially busy day on AAU. The way she always keeps an emergency bottle of Shiraz in the office, hidden deep in her desk drawer, and pretends that everyone from Bernie to Fletch to Lou don’t all know that it’s there. Serena’s hands finding Bernie’s shoulder, her back, her forearm, her own hands. Serena breaking through what Marcus used to call Bernie’s _don’t touch me bubble_ , breaking through because with Serena, around Serena, it just isn’t there. Even before the RAMC, Bernie was rarely tactile, was never the friend to link hands or arms, to go in for the hug or the kiss on the cheek.

And then comes Serena. With Serena, she doesn’t hug or kiss, doesn’t link hands or arms, but she does touch. She touches and touches and touches and when she can’t touch with her hands, she touches with her eyes, with her mind and her imagination. Her eyes commit every line and curve of Serena’s body and face to indelible memory, bottle up her laughter and her scent and tuck them away for a rainy day (or a sunny day, or a cloudy day, or any kind of night when she is lying in bed alone, tossing and turning on the torturous image of Serena’s flirtatious smile). Time passes, the feeling grows, and Bernie expends so much energy trying to push it away, push it down, that she soon grows tired enough to admit that it’s fruitless.

She accepts it. Accepts the attraction, accepts the futility of it: of having it, of fighting it. Of trying not to meet the gaze of a woman constantly reaching to meet her own. Tries to wring as much enjoyment out of the whole situation as she can before the inevitable guilt and self-loathing and mocking internal monologue set up permanent camp in her consciousness. And once she does, once she lets go, things are easier. She flirts back shamelessly, lets her guard down in theatre, smirks and laughs and teases Serena as they share space and words and work in their office, in the lift, over drinks. Jason starts his job as CAA on AAU and often joins them after work, sometimes chattering happily away, sometimes studying them both intently as though … but no, that would be crazy.

After the mess with Cameron and Keely and the accident, her casual abuse of Serena’s precious trust yet again, Bernie chases after her and apologies, desperately, an honesty pouring out of her that she’s rarely felt before, and she hangs onto the tiny parting smile Serena gives her with all her might. She is tempted to follow Serena out into the evening air, but stops herself; she reminds herself that Serena’s words – _that’s what love is, I suppose_ – that the understanding in Serena’s expressive eyes are gift enough, are far more than what she deserves. She is also more than aware of Cam’s words, Cam’s matter-of-fact assessment of the way she looks at Serena, still ringing around her mind, and she feels ripped open and raw at having been seen through so completely by the too-clever son she barely raised. She fears, just a little, that that rawness will show in her eyes; that she will touch Serena or look at her or speak to her in a way that will illuminate Bernie’s feelings – that Serena’s brightness will blind her, will make her forget, will light up the darkness Bernie tries so hard to hide. That Serena will _see_.

She vacillates between tentatively grateful disbelief that she has seen and spoken to Cameron again, after all this time, and terror that the fact that an outsider has recognised what she’s feeling will have broken the spell and destroyed everything. Bernie heads in just after dawn one day, some time later, restless and fidgety from too little sleep and too much caffeine, and uses the quiet lull before the night shift officially ends to make a start on the paperwork that has been steadily piling up on her desk.

She’s already downed another coffee and half a cup of strong black tea when Serena strides in and stops short at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?”

Bernie leans back, hands wrapped around her still-warm mug, and arches an eyebrow. “And a very good morning to you, my dear Ms Campbell.”

Serena rolls her eyes as she goes to set her bag and her coffee cup on her desk, but it’s good-natured. “I do apologise for my rudeness, Ms Wolfe. Good morning,” she says, affecting a little bow.

Bernie stifles a laugh. “Oh, dear, please stop. Deference doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Glad to hear it.” Serena smirks. “It’s always a pleasure to have my … dominance recognised.” As Serena boots up her computer, Bernie casts a glance at the time on her own monitor: zero to innuendo in nineteen seconds at 0640 on a Friday morning. That has to be a record, even for them. And without a body between them, too.

She realises too late that Serena’s gaze is on her, one eyebrow quirked in question. “You all right?”

“Um,” Bernie says, opening an email she’s already read just to look busy. “Yes, fine.” She glances up, smiles to make it more convincing. “How – how are you?”

Serena is looking at her strangely. “I’m just fine too,” she says. “Let’s try this again, shall we: what’s brought you in so early?” Serena peers at her, disarming gaze cutting right into Bernie, Bernie who has hardly slept, who is teetering on a knife’s edge, who is too tired and over-wired to have properly built up her walls. “Trouble sleeping?”

“A little,” Bernie admits.

“Is your back playing up again? Shall I take a look?”

“No!” she exclaims, rather more loudly than she intends. “Sorry,” she mutters. “But no, thank you. My back’s all right.”

Serena moves over to perch on the edge of Bernie’s desk, a haze of early-morning freshness and sweet perfume, and Bernie fights the urge to close her eyes and inhale. “Bernie,” she murmurs, her kind eyes searching Bernie’s own. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

That soft plea is more than Bernie could resist on a good day, a strong day, so today she doesn’t stand a chance. What she wants to say is, _I’m sorry I lied to you about Cameron. I know I broke your trust, and if you’ll give me the chance, I will do everything I can to earn it back. I know I should have said this before, but I’m saying it now. I don’t deserve your forgiveness but I would be so bold as to ask for it anyway. I’m sorry._

In a perfect world, she would say it. In a perfect world, she would form sentences like a mature, emotionally stable adult, she would take a breath and use it to tamp down her nerves and her insecurities and she would fight for the woman she loves. But this isn’t a perfect world and Bernie isn’t even a distant, fading blip on perfect’s radar. Bernie is Bernie: a failure, a mess, a perpetual disappointment; she loves, but it isn’t enough; she tries, but it isn’t enough; she hopes and hurts and bleeds and blames and denies and cries, inside, outside, and it’s never, ever enough.

So what she says, instead of all that, is: “Serena.” A whisper, more like.

Serena leans closer to her, as though she hasn’t heard. “Bernie,” she murmurs. “What is it? You’re starting to…” _worry me_ , she doesn’t say, but Bernie hears it as though she does.

Bernie looks up at her, into her eyes, and asks, “Are we okay?”

It’s presumptuous, it’s pushy, it’s a bollocks apology, but somehow, it’s the only thing that comes out. The words turn Bernie’s mouth arid, her eyes widening as she scrabbles for a way to take it back, to apologise for the not-an-apology before it makes everything worse. She is failing – always failing – until Serena extends her hand, warm from holding her coffee, warm because she always is, and slides two gentle fingers beneath Bernie’s chin, as though to tilt it. She doesn’t tilt it, though, just leaves them resting there before she strokes them across Bernie’s jawline, soft, barely-there, firing every nerve in Bernie’s body into overdrive and exploding goosebumps over her skin. Her eyes are no longer on Bernie’s, are following her fingers as they stroke and touch and explore – always light, so maddeningly feather-light – until Serena traces one thumb up along Bernie’s right cheekbone, shocking a harsh, hopelessly aroused breath from Bernie’s tight lungs, and then slowly, slowly draws back. 

There is probably only a moment before Serena glances away, clears her throat, heads back to her own desk and starts to talk, a little too cheerfully, about the electives they have scheduled for theatre today. There is probably only a moment but it feels like an age, time expanding to fill the senseless space between them (there should be no space between them), Bernie speechless and disbelieving and so turned on she can hardly breathe. And as she sits there, taking in not a word of what Serena is saying, Serena holding eye-contact in a way that just dares her to challenge it, Bernie loves her more fiercely and more painfully than ever.

Only this time, she can’t help but wonder if there isn’t the tiniest glimmer of hope that Serena might somehow love her back.


	7. Now

After that moment in the office, the one that steals Bernie’s breath and shoots her concentration to pieces for a good half-hour (the image sure to return with full effect at inopportune moments throughout the course of the day), Bernie is – internally, at least – a jittering mess, wild-eyed and edgy, expecting Serena to jump out at any moment and demand an explanation for her behaviour.

She has lost the ability to act like a functional adult, if ever she had it. She has lost the ability to interact with Serena, to look at Serena from across the ward, to merely think about Serena and not also think about leaning forward, sliding her hands into Serena’s hair, sliding her tongue into Serena’s mouth, and showing her exactly what that little display with the fingers and the touching and the sitting on the desk in front of her has done. 

Serena, of course, is all calm, collected composure; Bernie has kept her own cool in the field, IEDs exploding around her, but faced with this woman’s quirked eyebrow and teasing smirk – the smirk that tells Bernie she knows precisely what she’s thinking, and _how_ – Bernie, with all her twenty-five years medical experience and her MENSA-level IQ, is rendered a blubbering fool who can’t receive a little innuendo without blushing.

Her discomfort, furthermore, seems to be some sort of vital nutrition for Serena’s soul; she supposes Serena has determined that as long as Bernie is still capable of performing her duties, of dealing with patients and maintaining steady hands and a focused mind in theatre, there’s no harm done in torturing her outside it. Bernie almost wishes she were possessed of slightly less professional self-control – but only almost, because really, she loves it. She _loves_ it. How long has it been since she was flirted with like this? Years, certainly; decades, perhaps; she suspects, in fact, that the last time was back in the days of her prestigious Anglican single-sex boarding school, when Helena Forsythe had—

—but that isn’t relevant, is it? The point is that Serena is teasing her with purpose, with unwavering, directed intent, and Bernie may occasionally lack tact in social settings but this isn’t the kind of thing she’d ever miss. How could she miss it? She has been tuned in to Serena’s behaviour, to the sparkle in her eyes and the suggestive curl of her smile, since the day they met. She knows what Serena’s after; the burning looks, the lingering touches, the smirks and the sodding lip-licking and hip-swishing have made well sure of that. There are questions begging an answer – how is this happening? Have you thought this through? Why would you want me? What about work? Aren’t you _straight_? – but Bernie cannot ask them, cannot untie the knot of her tongue long enough to say any of the hundred million things racing through her mind (likely a blessing, since one half may comprise questions to which she would one day like an answer, but the others would leave her unfit for public interaction).

And so it goes: Serena unleashing her full arsenal of seductive techniques on a woman both unequipped and unwilling to defend herself, and Bernie trying desperately to catch her brain up enough to form a response. Because of course she wants Serena – God, does she want her; she wants her like she wants oxygen in order to keep on living, like she wants caffeine in the morning and sunlight in winter – but she doesn’t want her before Serena is sure. She doesn’t want to have Serena once, twice, for a month, only for Serena to realise that her brush with bisexuality was just that; mid-life experimentation and nothing more. Lines being blurred. An attraction born of working closely with a dear, trusted friend and co-lead; the all-too-common mistaking of friendship for moreship. She couldn’t handle it, she knows, if that were to happen. She’s too far gone. She’s fallen, despite her best efforts, and she’d rather keep Serena as her dear, trusted friend and co-lead than have her as more and then have to give her up.

Eleven days later, after Serena leans over Bernie’s desk (ostensibly to get her to sign something), cleavage exposed to Bernie’s eager, traitorous eyes, saucy smile in place, Bernie stutters out that she’s going to take a breather and runs up to the roof to light up. She’s barely even out of the stairwell before she’s pulling her fag out from where it’s tucked behind her ear – she didn’t even bring her jumper, just grabbed the pack and a lighter and high-tailed it out of there, had to get out of there before she could push Serena down against the desk and lower her head and—

—she takes a long drag, her fingers shaking, her entire body vibrating with want, and revels in the feel of the breeze on her bare arms, a balm. When the roof door opens behind her she dares not look around, afraid it’s Serena, here to bust her smoking and then maybe to torture her some more, so she is almost relieved when a droll voice says, “We really must stop meeting like this, Ms Wolfe. People will talk.”

She turns and smiles as Dom comes to stand beside her, shivering in his Holby hoodie and scrubs. “Aren’t you cold? Or did they toughen all weather-related sensation out of you in Kabul?”

“I wish,” Bernie says. She still has half the fag to go, but stubs it out when Dom gives her an unimpressed look. “So who are you hiding from, Dr Copeland?”

Dom laughs. “How did you know that? Couldn’t I have just been coming up here for, I don’t know, some air? To clear my mind?”

“Unlikely,” Bernie says. “When people want air, they go down. They want to escape, they go up. Proven scientific fact.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “They teach you that in the Army, too?” She rolls her eyes at him and he sighs. “Fine, yes, I’m hiding. But it’s not what you think!”

“Oh? And what do I think, pray tell?”

“You think boyfriend trouble,” Dom says.

“I do not,” Bernie tells him. She grins. “I think it’s more likely you’ve done something to get on Ric’s bad side, so you’re avoiding him, or you’ve got a case – a patient – who’s causing some concern. So? How’d I do? Warm? Lukewarm?”

“Hot,” he sighs, “as usual, you irritating sorceress.”

Bernie cackles in triumph. 

“I have a patient who is refusing elective surgery that will save his life. I came up here to … to try to figure out how to get through to him, I guess.”

Bernie is silent for a moment, considering, and then asks, “What are his reasons? For refusing treatment, I mean?”

“God’s will,” he says. 

“Ah,” Bernie says.

“Yeah. Any advice?”

Bernie thinks for a moment, and then: “Ask him if it mightn’t be God’s will that the surgery is available. Tell him that story about the guy who ignores God’s warnings and then ends up dead.”

Dom looks blank.

“There’s a faithful Christian man,” Bernie says, patiently, “who learns that the riverbanks around his home are soon going to flood. Everyone else evacuates but he says God will save him. Long story short, God sends a canoe, a helicopter and … some other thing, I forget, but the guy just keeps going on that God will save him. He gets washed away by the flood, ends up in heaven, and demands to know why God didn’t save him.”

“I get it,” Dom says. “God’s all, ‘dude, I sent you a canoe and a helicopter and you ignored them, what do you want from me?’”

Bernie makes an elaborate gesture. “Precisely.” She shrugs. “See if that works on him. You try everything you can think of, and if he still doesn’t accept treatment, it’s his own damn fault.” She glances at him. “But I feel confident you’ll find a way to get through to him.”

Dom nods, reaches over to briefly squeeze Bernie’s hand – it surprises her, but she allows it, gives him a small smile. “Thanks,” he says. Then, looking around the vast emptiness of the roof, he says loudly, “Anyone else see the irony of the Holby City Queer Society standing here discussing—” but he starts laughing before he can finish, and his giggles make Bernie snort out a laugh, as well.

“The Holby City Queer Society,” she repeats, tasting the word on her tongue for the first time. Out here, in the fresh air, this proud, lively man beside her, it doesn’t taste as sour as she’d feared. She turns to him gravely and says, “I expect a hat, Dominic.”

“Then a hat you shall have, Ms Wolfe. An HCQS hat. I’ll make some myself.”

She’s grinning when she says, “You do that.”

After a moment, Dom says, “If I may be so bold, what is it you’re hiding from this fine morning?”

“Inevitability,” she says, sighing. She could have brushed off his question, of course, but finds herself speaking before the possibility of anything else has really settled. “My feelings. Fear. Making the wrong decision…” she laughs hollowly. “Take your pick.”

Dom studies her a long moment, seems to be considering whether or not to speak, and then dares. “This is about Ms Campbell,” he says. It isn’t even a question, and Bernie wonders at that certainty, later on, but for now she just sighs again, nods. “May I speak freely?”

“No place freer than the Roof of Escape, Dr Copeland.”

He interprets that correctly as a yes, and says, “To be honest, I thought you were already together. I’ve thought it for months.” He shrugs when Bernie looks at him, surprised. “Gaydar, girlfriend. If you’re worried because Serena’s usually been with men, don’t be. There’s a lady who knows what she wants.”

“Hmm,” Bernie says, because she doesn’t want to tell him he’s right. 

“And if you’re worried you’re going to fuck things up, well … maybe you will.”

“Great pep-talk, there, pal,” Bernie says drily. “Did you pick up that style from me?”

“Ha ha,” Dom says. “I mean yeah, you might fuck up. _She_ might fuck up. One of you might fall under a bus next week, or get sick, or have a nervous breakdown and quit medicine to go live off the grid in an eco-commune in Devon. You never know, right? Things might go wrong, but they might not. You guys already have a good working relationship – and friendship, I assume – and I guess you’ve worked through some stuff during that time.” He takes a breath and says, “Maybe this is kind of radical, but … did you ever consider that sex might not change that much? Like, if you’re already messed up over each other, maybe it will even make things _easier_.” He shrugs coyly. “Unless you’re not suffering, of course…”

“Oh, believe me,” Bernie groans, scrubbing a hand down her face. “I’m suffering. I promise.”

“Then that settles it. You go have some hot lesbian whatever in the on-call room while I go talk my patient out of dying and then we’ll all live happily ever after.”

“Rousing speech,” Bernie says, patting his arm. “I’m tearing up.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dom says. “Pretty sure that was my Dr Phil conversation quota for the month reached.”

“Who’s Dr Phil?” Bernie deadpans.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Dom says, “I am so out of here.” He pauses to squeeze her shoulder as he goes, though, so he can’t be too mad.

*

The chill of the air has done her some good, helped her clear her head; strengthened her grip on her slippery self-restraint. She even manages to smile normally at Serena when she returns to the office, quite a feat considering Serena looks up when she enters and awards her with a smile that knocks the breath out of Bernie’s lungs, a smile that is somehow both simple and a complex combination of love, attraction, affection, promise, and regular old glad-to-see-you.

“Sorry I was gone a bit long; met up with Dom. Did I miss anything?”

Serena raises her eyebrows slightly but shakes her head. “Nothing much. Fletch won a bet that seems to have revolved around a certain registrar’s shoes – don’t ask – and Mr Munroe attempted to present us with an itemised list of reasons as to why we ought to up his morphine dose.”

“So lots of surprises then.”

“Indeed,” Serena says. She tilts her head to one side, studying her, twiddles her pen between her fingers. “Everything all right with you?”

“What? Oh, yes, fine, fine.” She coughs. “You? I mean, why?”

Serena raises an eyebrow, eyes fixed intense on Bernie’s, and murmurs, “You just seem a little … out of sorts.”

“Ha, never. Ha,” Bernie says, and half-laughs in a way that does nothing to help her case. She feels warm, suddenly; too warm, though it’s hardly possible; it was cold out there, after all, and she’s still just wearing scrubs. Scrubs that feel, beneath Serena’s heated, discerning gaze, as though they are made of wool and not poly-cotton. Scrubs that feel that they may have just been burned off by the will of said gaze. Serena is watching her like – God, Bernie can’t even describe it, not in terminology that could be considered polite in respectful society, so she looks around the room, searching literally for a topic, and, finding none, goes for the old faithful. “Heard on the radio this morning that it might rain, later,” and what does Serena do?

She bursts out laughing. “Oh, Bernie, has it really come this far?”

Bernie springs out of her chair at that injustice and, checking that the door is closed, starts pacing. “Right,” she says, almost under her breath. “Right. I think we need to have a chat, you and me.” She points a finger at Serena and then at herself. “It’s time.”

Serena leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, infuriatingly smug in her amusement. “Is it, now? Because I’d have thought—”

“No,” Bernie says, interrupting her with another gesture, “no, no, you listen to me, Serena Campbell. I’m doing the talking here, understood? You will hear me out.”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” Serena says silkily, eyes flashing, and Bernie files that particular piece of information away for a later she desperately hopes will come. 

“Right,” Bernie says again. Only now that she’s got her attention, she can’t seem to remember any of the clever, articulate, pointed things she’d been planning to say. Why is Serena smirking? Look away from Serena, she tells herself. Look at the plant. Unsexy plant. “We have to talk about this,” she says. She stamps down the rush of fear that comes with the following word and just says it, too wired to do otherwise. “Us.”

“I agree,” Serena says. She’s bad at keeping quiet, but Bernie decides to let it slide.

“There is a … a situation, uh, here, that we need to … that is, I think we—” she stops, feels the blush rising on her cheeks. She was once an eloquent woman, reduced now to this. She turns, faces Serena head on. “I have been given, in recent weeks, to receive the … the impression that you … you are, that is, interested in … in pursuing me,” she says.

“Oh?” Serena asks. “What in the world gave you that idea?”

“Am I correct?”

“Bernie, darling,” Serena says mildly, “could you be feeling a little flustered, perhaps?”

“Serena,” Bernie pleads, pressing her hands against the desk, “please just answer the question before I explode.”

Serena looks like she wants to tease her some more, but she finally takes pity on her and says, softly, “You are correct.”

Bernie finally releases the breath she’s been holding for what feels like hours, and then promptly realises she has no idea what to do now. What to say. In her imagination, she’d only ever come this far, as far as asking. 

She is spared the impossible task of having to think up something to say when Serena does it for her. “You are correct,” she says again, her voice lower. “I want you, Bernie.” The words Bernie hadn’t dared say herself, hadn’t dare presume, fall on her ears like rain on scorched land. “I’d have thought it were obvious,” she continues, conversationally, “but my efforts appear to have gone undetected.”

“Unde—unde _tected_?” Bernie says. “Are you serious? Serena,” she nearly growls, and she strides forward to lean right over Serena’s chair, right over Serena’s flushed face and parted lips, her own hands braced either side of Serena’s body. “These last few weeks have been _torture_. Do you have any idea what it’s done to me to have you strutting about the ward looking like that? With you looking at me like you want to—to—” she blushes furiously as the image of Serena stripping her bare and having her way with her right here, on the desk, floods her mind. She can’t finish the thought. “—and making everyday words sound like porno dialogue? And the way you’ve been _touching me_ , Serena – what was that here, last week? When you—” she reaches a trembling finger up to trace Serena’s jawline, an echo of the movements that so disarmed her, and is fiercely, deliciously gratified at the way Serena whimpers into her touch, breath catching audibly. “I’ve been on fire,” she whispers. “A fire that never goes out.” She brushes her thumb against Serena’s lip and then pulls back. “Have you been trying to kill me? Because it’s damned near worked.”

Serena doesn’t speak for a long moment, and then she says, “Right, now it’s my turn.” And before Bernie knows what’s happening, Serena has slid out from under her arm, pushed Bernie down into her chair, and reversed their positions. Bernie might have been miffed at her gall if she weren’t so turned on. Serena notices this, of course, and gives her a predatory smirk, eyes flickering down to Bernie’s lips and back up again. “First of all,” Serena says, “I would like to assure you that I wasn’t trying to kill you.” She grins. “Not permanently. I was trying to get your attention.”

“You have it,” Bernie mutters. 

“And to send you a message.”

“What message?”

Serena runs a finger over the shell of Bernie’s ear and tugs on her earlobe. “That I am very, very attracted to you, Ms Wolfe.”

Bernie grips at the arms of the chair, heart pounding. “O…okay.” 

Serena’s finger wanders across her cheekbones, down the line of her nose. “That I’m not going to give up on you.” Down to her lips, thumb tracing, too softly; nail edging along the seam. “That I’ll be here, waiting, whenever you decide that you’re ready.”

The irony of this isn’t lost on Bernie, and she opens her mouth to say something – anything; she doesn’t know what – but is shushed by Serena’s finger, now moving down her neck, caressing her scar. Serena leans in, warm lips and warm breath against Bernie’s ear, and murmurs, “That I’m leaving it to you to make the first move. Your choice.”

Bernie pulls back slightly, gazes into dilated pupils, and, quivering with need, with awe, with disbelief, manages to extricate her hand from its death-grip on the chair and begins the slow ascent to Serena’s face. Serena allows it, keeps her eyes fixed on Bernie’s as Bernie’s fingers trail up and up, up along her arms and her shoulders, pausing to toy at her neck, to slide around the back and then lose themselves in Serena’s soft hair.

Bernie’s mind is skittering along as wildly as her pulse, throwing cautions and doubts and concerns around like squash balls, but among the jeering voices of her shot-to-bits self-esteem, between the sarcastic mental comments of _why should you bother when you’ll only fuck this up_ and _why would she want you_ and _she’s straight, she’s having a laugh, you’re a fool_ , Bernie is aware of the truth: Serena’s eyes, hot on hers; Serena’s smile, cheeky and full of promise; Serena’s friendship, strong and steady and consistent through all these months, through all Bernie’s screw-ups and bad decisions and the fallout. Serena, a woman who knows her, who knows her at her worst and her best and wants her anyway.

Serena, who is laughing above her, saying, “Berenice bloody Wolfe, if you don’t kiss me right now—”

And Bernie pulls Serena down onto her lap (Serena squeaks but denies it forever) and does just that, circles one arm around her waist to hold her steady and kisses her, not chastely, opens her mouth eagerly to Serena’s questing tongue, and thrills at the way Serena makes a mewling noise of pleasure when her tongue brushes Bernie’s own. Bernie’s hands are committed to their exploration, the one at Serena’s back sliding up underneath her shirt to trail across warm skin, the other scratching through Serena’s hair, and Serena – far from hesitant or fearful or anything one might expect – has already got one hand up Bernie’s scrub top and is pinching her hardened nipple through her bra.

“I take it you don’t want to take things slow, then,” Bernie gasps, when Serena parts their lips only to go for Bernie’s neck instead, kissing and licking – not sucking, Bernie is relieved to note – all the way down to her collarbones and back up.

Bernie groans and arches her head back, offering more access, and slides her own hands up Serena’s sides, beneath her camisole, to delight in the softness of her curves. They are on the verge of getting carried away, Serena murmuring into Bernie’s ear how she wants her, wants her right now, refuses to wait any longer—

—when their pagers beep, simultaneously, and they reluctantly draw apart, panting, foreheads pressed together.

“Oh, heavens,” Serena says, when she’s caught her breath. “It would appear I’ve reverted to the hormonal maturity of an F1.”

“Must be contagious,” Bernie chuckles, and relishes the feel of Serena’s hammering pulse beneath her fingers. She caresses the point at her neck and then kisses it, lingering a little longer when Serena groans.

“Don’t start that again or we’ll never get out of here.”

“And that’s a problem because…?”

“The red phone, my darling, the red phone.”

Serena lifts herself off Bernie’s lap and sets about straightening her clothing and untangling her necklace from the collar of her blouse. When she’s done, she looks up and says, “How do I look?”

“Ravished,” Bernie says, then coughs. “Ravishing, I mean, but…”

“What?”

“You, uh, may want to touch up your lippie before you go out there.”

Serena groans and starts to rifle through her handbag. “Go on, answer the call, I’ll be there soon,” she says. 

Bernie can’t resist; she pushes Serena up against the lip of the desk and kisses her one last time, messy and thorough, and then pulls away, grinning. “No point wasting the opportunity before you’ve fixed it up, is there?”

Serena rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Get out of here, you. We will be continuing this later.” She pauses, looks uncertain for the first time in this whole desperate, whirlwind, far-too-long-in-coming encounter. “If you want to, that is?”

Bernie smiles at her, her heart swelling with such affection that her breath nearly catches in her throat for a different reason. What can she say? Profess that she loves her, needs her, wants her, wants to do everything in her power to make this work because she’s never, ever felt like this before? But she can say none of that, should say none of that – for those things, it’s too soon, and there is a long, difficult journey between thinking words and expressing them – so she just says, “I do.”

The talking will come later – will have to come later, away from here, away from the ward and the trauma phone and the prying eyes of their esteemed colleagues – so for now, she can only hope those two little words are enough. From the smile she gets in response, she dares to think that maybe they are.


End file.
